Follow-up of the 56 signers of U.S. Declaration of Independence

[waving USA flag]


Follow-up of the 56 signers
of U.S. Declaration of Independence


Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died;
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned;
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured;
Nine fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War;
They signed pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists;
Eleven were merchants;
Nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated yet they signed knowing the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy.  He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly.  He served in the Congress without pay almost continuously from 1774 to 1783, his family he kept in hiding, his possessions were confiscated; poverty was his reward.  He moved to Philadelphia in 1774; served as governor of Pennsylvania from 1799 to 1808; born in New London, Pennsylvania.  He wrote most of Delaware's constitution.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Clymer, Dillery, Gwinnett, Hall, Heyward, Middleton, Ruttledge, and Walton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over his home for British headquarters.  He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire.  The home was destroyed; Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed, his wife was jailed and died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying.  Their 13 children fled for their lives.  His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste.  For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.  A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.
Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.
Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution.
These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians.  They were soft-spoken men of means and education.  They had security, but they valued liberty more.  Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged:
"For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
They gave you and me a free and independent America.  The history books don't relate a lot of what happened in the Revolutionary War; we weren't just fighting the British, we were fighting our own government.  Some of us take these liberties for granted; we should never forget.
Let's all remember that freedom is NEVER free.


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